Voting California

It's election day. You leave work at 5 on the dot. You need to stop for milk and get home to see the children you have not seen all day. But first, you are going to vote for the next president of the United States. You navigate a level of rush hour traffic you did not know existed because you never leave work at 5 on the dot. You pull into the driveway of your neighborhood polling place just in time to hear on your car radio that the networks have projected a winner.

The lessons of the 2012 election are still being learned, but here's one we already know: We need to do more to increase voter participation. In many battleground states, the intense and highly partisan presidential campaign bumped up turnout percentages from 2008. But in most states, where the outcome of the presidential contest was predictable, voter participation fell from the historically high levels of four years ago. On top of that, there were embarrassingly long lines at the polls in many locations, something that hardly reflected positively on the nation's commitment to democracy.

The lessons of the 2012 election are still being learned, but here's one we already know: We need to do more to increase voter participation. In many battleground states, the intense and highly partisan presidential campaign bumped up turnout percentages from 2008. But in most states, where the outcome of the presidential contest was predictable, voter participation fell from the historically high levels of four years ago. On top of that, there were embarrassingly long lines at the polls in many locations, something that hardly reflected positively on the nation's commitment to democracy.

SACRAMENTO - When the California Legislature works, this is one example of how it works well. But one big caveat: We're talking about functional versus dysfunctional, leadership versus ineptitude - a system that is running smoothly rather than broken. We're not necessarily talking about a desired policy result. Sometimes you lose. (If you're a California Republican, you usually do in Sacramento.) First, the math: Gov. Jerry Brown and his legislative leader allies needed a majority vote in each house - 41 in the Assembly, 21 in the Senate - to spend the initial $8 billion in high-speed rail construction money ($4.7 billion in state bonds, $3.3 billion in federal grants)

Republican activists trying to overturn new state Senate districts began filing signed petitions Thursday for a California-wide referendum on the issue. Referendum proponents, calling themselves Fairness and Accountability in Redistricting (FAIR), have until Sunday to file the minimum 504,000 signatures needed to get the matter on the November 2012 ballot. FAIR charges that the maps, drawn for the first time by a citizens commission instead of the Legislature, bear "trademarks of gerrymandering" to favor Democrats.

SACRAMENTO - When the California Legislature works, this is one example of how it works well. But one big caveat: We're talking about functional versus dysfunctional, leadership versus ineptitude - a system that is running smoothly rather than broken. We're not necessarily talking about a desired policy result. Sometimes you lose. (If you're a California Republican, you usually do in Sacramento.) First, the math: Gov. Jerry Brown and his legislative leader allies needed a majority vote in each house - 41 in the Assembly, 21 in the Senate - to spend the initial $8 billion in high-speed rail construction money ($4.7 billion in state bonds, $3.3 billion in federal grants)

September 10, 1990 | BILL STALL and CATHLEEN DECKER, TIMES POLITICAL WRITERS

While confessing that "I am a city girl," Dianne Feinstein put on her western duds Sunday and stumped California's agricultural heartland, promising to be a friend of farming if elected governor but refusing to temper her strong support for Proposition 128, the sweeping environmental initiative. Feinstein and her Republican opponent, Sen. Pete Wilson, crisscrossed the San Joaquin Valley in search of the farm vote that conventional wisdom would concede to Wilson.

Reporting from Sacramento -- A proposed law against taking cellphones into California prisons passed a key vote Tuesday, but the measure would exempt prison employees ? considered a main source of phones used to arrange crimes from behind bars ? from screening by metal detectors as they go to work. Requiring prison guards to stand in line for airport-like security checks would cost the state millions, according to legislative analysts. That is because members of the politically powerful corrections officers union are paid for "walk time" ?

From New Jersey to Los Angeles, builders and developers, lenders and housing advocates are joining hands to build shelters for the homeless, construct affordable rental property or provide below-market financing for low-income buyers. For example, the Local Initiative Support Corp. is the intermediary for public and private sector parterships designed to fund and build low-income housing nationwide.

Republican activists trying to overturn new state Senate districts began filing signed petitions Thursday for a California-wide referendum on the issue. Referendum proponents, calling themselves Fairness and Accountability in Redistricting (FAIR), have until Sunday to file the minimum 504,000 signatures needed to get the matter on the November 2012 ballot. FAIR charges that the maps, drawn for the first time by a citizens commission instead of the Legislature, bear "trademarks of gerrymandering" to favor Democrats.

Though it is rare, the occasional American presidential election goes to the loser of the popular vote, an outcome that undermines basic notions of fairness and democracy and is an artifact of the nation's ancient electoral system. Advocates of a popular vote system have persuaded both houses of the California Legislature to adopt a measure that would lend California's support to that idea. Gov. Jerry Brown should sign it. In drafting the U.S. Constitution, the framers created a two-tiered system for electing presidents.

Reporting from Sacramento -- A proposed law against taking cellphones into California prisons passed a key vote Tuesday, but the measure would exempt prison employees ? considered a main source of phones used to arrange crimes from behind bars ? from screening by metal detectors as they go to work. Requiring prison guards to stand in line for airport-like security checks would cost the state millions, according to legislative analysts. That is because members of the politically powerful corrections officers union are paid for "walk time" ?

An insurance industry-backed bill that would make it easier for auto insurers to persuade motorists to fix their dents only at company-selected garages won a key vote Friday in the state Senate and should be on the governor's desk next week. Insurers say the bill is needed so that they can give policyholders full information about the benefits of having work done at select auto body shops. Those advantages include lifetime guarantees, fast turnarounds and quality repairs, the insurers say. But opponents -- an unlikely coalition of car dealers, auto body shops, trial attorneys and consumer activists -- contend the bill would weaken safeguards against "steering," an illegal practice in which motorists are pushed with a combination of economic incentives and penalties into taking their cars to certain body shops.

May 20, 2009 | Joe Mathews, Joe Mathews, a contributing writer to Opinion, is an Irvine senior fellow at the New America Foundation.

The special election is over. The griping is not. Here's one pair of complaints airing more often than "Law & Order" reruns: Why does California keep having special elections? And why are we forced to digest so many measures on the same ballot? Those are good questions -- and still relevant even with Tuesday's election mercifully in our rearview mirror. In the weeks ahead, legislative leaders will have to seek a new budget-cutting deal.

Hillary Rodham Clinton has munched on tacos in East Los Angeles and Barack Obama has joked around on Southern California's top Spanish-language radio program "Piolin por la Manana," both carefully orchestrated attempts to connect with wavering, undecided Latino voters like stay-at-home mother-of-two Denise Mendoza. "I think it's funny, comical even," said Mendoza, 25, of Glendale, who has tuned into most of the presidential debates and surfed through the candidate's websites.

The Fresno lawmaker who pushed for years to get California voters into the thick of the presidential nomination process by moving the primary from June to March said this week he will work for more far-reaching reforms after this month's balloting. A more rational system would be to have five regional primaries nationwide, said state Sen. Jim Costa (D-Fresno), who began working for an earlier primary when he was in the Assembly in the early 1980s.

As the California Legislature prepares for a showdown vote today on the state budget, welfare has emerged as a sticking point in passage of the $100-billion spending plan. Republicans, whose votes are needed for the requisite two-thirds passage, are complaining angrily that Democrats want to roll back welfare reform by making more people eligible. They point to a proposal that would exempt a recipient's first car, regardless of value, as proof that Democrats are bent on expanding welfare rolls.

As the California Legislature prepares for a showdown vote today on the state budget, welfare has emerged as a sticking point in passage of the $100-billion spending plan. Republicans, whose votes are needed for the requisite two-thirds passage, are complaining angrily that Democrats want to roll back welfare reform by making more people eligible. They point to a proposal that would exempt a recipient's first car, regardless of value, as proof that Democrats are bent on expanding welfare rolls.

It's election day. You leave work at 5 on the dot. You need to stop for milk and get home to see the children you have not seen all day. But first, you are going to vote for the next president of the United States. You navigate a level of rush hour traffic you did not know existed because you never leave work at 5 on the dot. You pull into the driveway of your neighborhood polling place just in time to hear on your car radio that the networks have projected a winner.